Following tremendous outpouring of celebrity-driven support and legal aid, Brown-Long was granted clemency by the former governor of Tennessee in 2019, 15 years after she was first sentenced. Now, Brown is happily married and works as an advocate for criminal justice reform. She will be on parole for the next 10 years.

Both laws and social mores have changed since Brown-Long was sentenced in 2004, and labeled a teenage prostitute. Today, in Tennessee, anyone 18 or younger cannot be charged with prostitution. A Tennessee law passed in 2012 defines any minor who performs a commercial sex act as a victim of sex trafficking.

From Murder to Mercy tracks this shift in perception through the lens of Brown-Long's case. The only problem with Netflix'sdocumentary? Brown-Long says she was not involved in its making.

"I had nothing to do with this documentary. I did not participate in any way,” Brown-Long reportedly wrote in what appears to be a now-deleted Twitter statement on April 15, per The Root. (OprahMag.com has reached out to the film's creators for comment.)

Back in 2011, Brown-Long was featured in Birman's PBS documentary Me Facing Life: Cyntoia's Story. Birman also happens to be the director of Murder to Mercy. According to The Daily Beast, Birman incorporated interviews with Brown-Long conducted for the 2011 documentary alongside new insights from Brown-Long's legal team and family members (A representative for Netflix told The Daily Beast that Brown-Long will be promoting her book along with Netflix’s documentary “in an exclusive interview” and her tweet was subsequently deleted.)

Though she supposedly wasn't involved, Brown-Long hopes the film aligns with her own mission: Advocating for victims of the criminal justice system like herself. “I pray that this film highlights things wrong in our justice system," Brown-Long reportedly wrote in the since deleted Twitter post.

Here's what Brown, now 32, is up to now.

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She met her husband, Jamie Long, while in prison.

Brown-Long married Jamie Long, a 34-year-old musician better known as J. Long, while she was incarcerated. Long is a former member of the R&B group Pretty Ricky, and now works as a Christian rapper. Per an interview on The Breakfast Club radio show, Long also owns a healthcare equipment company.

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On the same radio broadcast, the couple recounted their unusual meet-cute. Years ago, Long watched the PBS documentary Me Facing Life: Cyntoia's Story, and recalled, "I felt God tell me, stop and write her," Long said. "I told her basically, God told me to tell you you're getting out of prison."

To Long's surprise, he received a reply. The couple exchanged letters, and met in-person four months later. "When I went in to see her, I knew right then she would be my wife," Long said. His instincts were right: They got engaged two years later. "I bought my wife's wedding ring while she was still in prison, and we didn't know if she was getting out," he continued.

Brown gave her perspective in an interview with Essence: “He came along at a point when all my appeals had been denied, and I didn’t have hope. We prayed through it, and because of him I started working on my relationship with God. And that’s when my federal appeal opened back up, which is unheard of.”

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Instead, as the publisher's official description demonstrates, the memoir focuses on Brown-Long's spiritual journey and rehabilitation.

"In these pages, written over the fifteen years she was incarcerated, Cyntoia shares the difficult early life that lead to that fateful night and how she found the strength to not only survive, but thrive, in prison. A coming-of-age memoir set against the shocking backdrop of a life behind bars, Free Cyntoia takes you on a spiritual journey as Cyntoia struggles to overcome a legacy of family addiction and a lifetime of feeling ostracized and abandoned by society," the description reads.

The memoir was nominated for the NAACP Image Awards in the category of Outstanding Biography/Autobiography.

All of this is in service of her goal: Educating others, especially young women, through her story. She told NBC News that she didn't think of herself as a victim of sexual trafficking until she was in her 20s. Instead, she thought of her pimp, Garion McGlothen (better known by his street name, "Kutthroat"), as her boyfriend.

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“You meet these young girls who are in these situations. And they don't view themselves as being pimped. They don't view their trafficker as their trafficker. They think, ‘This is my boyfriend.’ And that's exactly what I thought...I thought, ‘This is my boyfriend. I'm in a relationship. I'm his Bonnie, he's my Clyde,’” Brown-Long told NBC News.

While speaking to NBC, Brown-Long said there were many other women like her—and she's speaking out for them, too. Recently, Brown-Long advocated on behalf of Chrystul Kizer, a woman who fatally shot her abuser at 17, and is now facing life in prison. "Here was yet another situation where there was a young girl caught up with some unfortunate circumstances, who reacted out of trauma," Brown-Long told Buzzfeed's AM2DM. "And the justice system wasn't necessarily trying to hear that, trying to see that."

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Law school is on her to-do list.

“I’m committed to the same fight that got me free. I definitely think that there’s a need for reform, not just in prison, but in sentencing and the way justice is handed out in our country. I’m committed to fighting for al the other people who are just like me,” Brown-Long said.

She's active on Instagram.

Brown-Long posts updates about her life post-prison on the Instagram account @cyntoiabrownofficial. According to her Instagram, she's learned how to ride a horse.

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